Penguins are considered a pretty smart species, so don’t tell them they’ve recently been fooled by a four-wheeled rover robot disguised as a baby chick.

Since human contact stresses out emperor penguins, a team of international scientists studying in Antarctica recently figured out how to get up-close and personal with a breeding colony without actually going near them at all.

Studying animals in the wild without disrupting their habitat or behaviors is a constant struggle for scientists. They need to understand species, especially ones like the emperor penguin, which face new struggles as climate change alters and shrinks their natural habitat.

In order to study these flightless birds, scientists have to interact directly with them by tagging them with subcutaneous passive integrated transponders (PIT). The researchers then use radio frequency identification (RFID) to collect valuable data about the penguins’ activity and health.

Since the maximum reading distance between PITS and RFID is roughly 60 cm, something has to get quite close to the penguins to collect the data. When humans approach, the penguins' heart rates rise and don't return to normal for a while.

In a paper submitted on Sunday to the research journal Nature Methods, scientists described how they first used a remote control rover to approach the penguins. Thanks to its dual antennas, it had the immediate benefit of more easily capturing data from a wider area than a hand-held reader.

The Penguins reacted somewhat better, too. They still attacked the rover, just as they did the humans, but their heart rates didn’t rise quite as high.

When researchers disguised the rover to look like a grey baby chick penguin, the reactions were markedly different.

According to the study, “All adult and chick emperor penguins allowed it to approach close enough for electronic identification.”

Even though the rovers’ wheels were still clearly visible, the penguins even started treating it like a member of the colony, allowing the rover to join a cluster of chicks and, researcher Yvon Le Maho of the University of Strasbourg in France told the AP, sang it "a very special song like a trumpet," Le Maho said.

"They were very disappointed when there was no answer," Le Maho told the AP. "Next time we will have a rover playing songs."

It’s quite an accomplishment considering that studies show animals not only recognize each other, but recognize the “uncanny valley,” reacting poorly to things that look almost, but not quite like their own species.

One way that researchers may have overcome this hurdle is by making sure that, as the rover moved about the penguins collecting data, it mimicked how a real penguin chick might wander through the colony. They’d move the rover rapidly for a few meters and then have it sit stationary for a few seconds. Researchers improved the rover robot chick throughout the studies, which were conducted between 2008 and 2014, eventually developing a cover that fully hid the robot wheels.

The initial rover results — the ones without the fake penguin chick — could have implications that go far beyond Antarctica’s penguin population. In their paper, researchers note that rovers could be used to help study other species (birds, underwater mammals) that react strongly when humans approach. In fact, pilot studies are already underway with elephant seals.

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